PlanetCatfish.com

So, i have a 55g tank, currently housing a big red oscar hes pushing 13 inchs, and a 5 inch common pleco, and im looking to add another pleco/catfish to the mix, my question is what should i put in there, i want something with color that i wont have to pay out the behind for, green would be a great color... i know your all thinking, the oscar is a bully but honestly hes the most passive fish i've ever seen, he attacks his food but thats it the other pleco has been with him for quite some time and the oscar never so much looks at him...that considered i know he could turn any second though. So what do you suggest? Links would be great to pics of your suggestions.

*edit* forgot to add, theres a nice piece of Mopani Driftwood in the tank, along with some aponogeton plants growing. Filtration is high, 330g/p/hr HOB and 110 g/p/hr fluval canister, plenty of o2 going in the water as my hydor light/air bubbler combo is going up into the waterfall from the HOB and you can see millions of very tiny air bubbles all over the tank*edit*

Your tank is really too small for both an Oscar and a common pleco. In fact, it's too small for the Oscar you have now, you need a tank that is about 24" back to front, yours is just about the size of the Oscar now, right? The rule most people roughly agree with is 4L x 2L x 2L where L is the size of the fish - at 13", you get 52" x 26" x 26" - nearest "standard" size is 48" x 24" x24".

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Mats

I agree, the tank is way too small.

4Lx2Lx2L is often given as a standard on this site, and I can see the point of that. However, I feel this is still a bit too small.

For most catfish i would stick to 7Lx2Lx2L as a minimum. For shoaling fish like tetra's and such, I would even recommend 10Lx2Lx2L. Here in Holland, the latter minimum can be seen as an 'unwritten rule'.

Therefore I often feel sick after watching some Youtube video's. Especially in the US, many people just fill up their tanks with monster fish, without thinking about it. How often do you see a "large" tank on Youtube which is stocked with some Pacu, a redtail and a shovelnose for starters? I hope people will stop this cruel practice. And I surely hope nobody is going to see those tanks as examples for their own tank.

Alvin please don't take this personally, this is not my intention. Just posting this to try to prevent you from doing the same!

I think we've discussed this before. It depends a lot on the activity level of the fish, and also the size of the fish itself (small fish in a small tank is less good than large fish in a slightly larger tank, if you see what I mean). And it is the MINIMUM size. There is nothing saying you can't have a 10 foot long tank with a few Oscar in it. But it would pretty much mean that fish over about 6" (15cm) are impossible to keep in an average home, and I don't think you need to be THAT restrictive. I have fish that are about 20 cm (8") in a 1.2m/4ft long and 18" wide tank - which makes it about 6L x 2L, but the fish aren't quite fully grown yet - and I'm happy that my L128 that are in that tank are happy and content with the size of tank [yes, of course, if the fish had a choice, they would live in the river in Venezuela, not in my tank - but they were in a shop, so someone would buy them, and there are apparently, from Mark Sabaj at least, no real issue with catching fish in the wild from a conservation standpoint].

Actually, Practical Fishkeeping Magazine suggests a 3L x 2L minumum base - and base is really what matters for MOST fish - tank height is more related to the actual size and behaviour of the fish.

If you personally want to have a bigger standard than that, and keep fish that are less than 1/7th of the size of tank, or whatever, then that's fine by me. You are above the 4L x 2L rule.

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Mats

yes Mats, I also think we discussed this before, and it's not my intention to go far offtopic, but i'm just fascinated about how people come to these minimum standards. I guess it has to do with personality and preferences too.

I had a 30 cm P.pardalis on a 100x40 cm base, and I just couldn't watch the tank anymore without feeling guilty. Hence I'm glad he's swimming in a tank containing around 3000 liters now!

but anyway, back ontopic i guess

MatsP wrote:It depends a lot on the activity level of the fishMats

I'll agree fully with Mats here- more active fish really need to have more room than the 4LX2WX2H rule, but with less active fish I don't feel so guilty. As an example, I bought some lemon-finned barbs (Hypsibarbus wetmorei) last year, despite a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that they got big, after looking round the internet for hours and finding the maximum size quoted was 8"SL (I did find a site photographing a purported world record at about 3lb in weight, but I figured "OK, so they're the size of a roach or rudd", which can go over 12" but usually stay around 6" or even 4"). I've since found that they get much bigger than 8", and mine have now reached 7"SL, and I'd say they're already approaching absolute maximum size for a 5'X2'X2.5' tank, just because they're so active. My male Tilapia mariae and 'Geophagus' iporangensis (which was supposed to top out at 4"SL according to Fishbase) are bigger and heavier (both nearly 8"SL), but much less active, and I don't feel guilty about the tank size for them (though I wouldn't put them in a smaller tank either). If nothing else I've learned my lesson not to buy fish I'm not absolutely sure about maximum size for.

well, i understand that and i've tried to find a new home for the oscar, my LFS doesn't want to take it as he doesn't have a tank big enough to house the oscar properly...i've got a few people who were interested then fell out at the last minute. that being said the oscar isn't super active, and he seems really happy in the tank and i've never once seen a dispute over territory but i agree the tank is a bit small for the oscar if you know anyone in the upstate ny area looking for a full grown red oscar send them my way so long as i know the fish is going to a better home then i can provide i wont even want money..so lets say the oscar is out of the picture, what other pleco can i add to the tank to boost the color in there, like i said before something thats green, or yellow even would be a great addition and if i can do that without paying out the butt for it, i'd be super happy.

Well, if you still have a common pleco in the tank, I wouldn't really recommend anything fancy.

is greenish in colour. Not sure about a yellow one, aside from perhaps an albino .

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Mats

why whats up with the common pleco, is it just the size that he's going to reach? or do they end up being pretty aggressive in the future? or a combination of both perhaps?

Common plecos are very adaptable in getting to food. Other plecos are usually not so forward and will slowly starve in the same tank as a common pleco. The same applies if you keep common bristlenose with fancy plecos, in general.

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Mats

do you think it's a possibility that the l205 was starved to death from my common? i saw the 205 eating a couple times, and i rarely ever see my common come out and eat, although i know he does as the food disappears after i fall asleep. someone else mentioned in another post that my 205 looked a bit skinny, i had him not even 2 weeks and he was the same size coming from the LFS

Hi Alvin,
I won't extend the big fish in small tank talk.
But if you really have/had L205, , it isn't well suited to be kept with large fish and especially the strongly territorial and ultimately large common pleco.
The small Peckoltia do best in a peaceful aquarium with plenty of hiing places. They are hesitant to compete with large plecos and tend to feed mainly at night. It could starve to death in your described tank. Another factor that causes many unexplained deaths of small wild plecos is that they may have gone as long as month without food since apture to eventual placement in your tank. They need a period of quarantine to treat them for the usual suspect parasites all wild fish including plecos have. The long period of starvation can result in a fish being too far gone to save regardless of how carefully you took care of it.
Peckoltia brevis needs to fed frozen blood worms, live black worms(from a cereal bowl works in tanks with substrates), earth worm sticks and most any of the carnivore tablets, Discus pellet foods or the all purpose Tetra Color bits. Peckoltia brevis is a nice species to keep and deserves a little extra TLC. They do best in warm water, 84* to 86*F.